When Davidicus Wong (cool name) told of being asked by a fellow passenger on a plane “Are you a GP or just a just a specialist?”, it set the scene for the Impact BC Canadian Health Improvement Forum, which preceded the Institute for Healthcare Improvement meeting (10th Annual International Summit on Redesigning the Clinical Office Practice) in Vancouver. During a break, a GP who has been in practice for 30 years in Fort St John about 800 km north of Vancouver, told me he has never enjoyed general practice so much. Something is happening. These doctors enjoy their work, talk about it being fun and rewarding, and invest huge time and efforts to improve their practice. more…

In October last year we announced the UK Forum on Health Care Priority Setting at the 7th meeting of the International Society on Priorities in Health Care. The forum is funded by the NHS Institute for Innovation and Improvement and is organised by the Institute of Health and Society at Newcastle University. more…

Bill Gates’ talk on the first day of the TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) conference got huge coverage, and within just a few hours some wag had turned Gates’ stunt of releasing mosquitoes into the audience into a Terry Gilliamesque game. more…

TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) is a movement as much as conference. It started 25 years ago with a couple of hundred technology experts and enthusiasts. Last year it attracted more than 1000 people and outgrew its home in Monterey, so it’s moved to Long Beach, California. Long term TEDsters say it’s broadened in the past few years and become more about policy, global strategies, and green issues. But it’s still TED. more…

It was a Boston day so cold that my morning assortment of emails included a message suggesting that hospital employees should be on the lookout for indoor puddles that might indicate frozen, burst water pipes. As I walked across the medical school campus towards the Tosteson Medical Education Center, I did not anticipate that this year’s 69th Annual Soma Weiss Student Research Day at Harvard Medical School (HMS) would be as well attended as it was. more…

Ever wondered what it is like to be present at an event that changes history? The Academy of Medical Sciences organised a meeting entitled “Research in General practice; bringing innovation into patient care” on Dec 12, a meeting that will, I suspect, be looked upon in future as a defining moment in UK primary care research. Orchestrated by Yvonne Carter (University of Warwick), who sadly was unable to be present, it brought invited representatives of the major funding bodies and research institutions and like many events, the unstructured and informal components were as important as the official programme. more…

How far does your interest in global health stretch? Far enough to have forged a link between your hospital or practice and a similar one in a low income country? If the answer is no but the idea appeals log on to www.thet.org, the website of the Tropical Health and Education Trust, or THET as the charity prefers to be called. THET has been guiding and supporting long term, low budget, health links between health professionals in the UK and their counterparts in low income countries for 20 years. Last week it launched a new drive for support. It chose a good launch venue. more…

The plane didn’t crash. I was pretty sure I had turned it off, but there was no mistaking the message signal and vibration in my jacket pocket as we circled Miami, close to landing. It wasn’t just one message but five in quick succession. I had to do something. I switched it off, conscious of a great imaginary finger pointing at me. I must have accidentally pressed against it during the transatlantic flight (oh yeah … I can hear you). But it made me wonder if mobile phones do have any effect. more…

Most of the delegates have managed to make it to Mali, despite a threatened strike by Air France’s pilots. In the end, by various routes, there are over 1000 of us from 75 countries. Our aim is to focus on efforts to strengthen the ability of developing countries to do research for health, but airlines are on all our minds.

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Ole Frithjof Norheim and Cam Donaldson (pictured) sum up lessons learned from the 7th International conference on priority setting in health care. more…